


After the Ashes

by lyrithim



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Lawyers, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Minor Character Death, Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Spoilers, farming, if you can believe that in a coffeeshop au, references to alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 23:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13258842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyrithim/pseuds/lyrithim
Summary: Sif arrives at the Little Asgardian café to help an old friend out with some legal issues and finds herself drawn to a barista named Val.Valkyrie/Sif Coffeeshop AU.





	After the Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for an anon on Tumblr who asked for "Marvel AU, any two characters, coffeeshop, happy" back in November (I am so. sorry this is super late). I just finished watching Thor: Ragnarok at the time and was sobbing at that five-second flashback Valkyrie had, and I came out of the theater just really intent on giving Valkyrie the loving gf she deserves. So here the fic for it.

1.

 

In Sif’s defense, she did promise Thor Odinson that she would visit the Little Asgardian “after the work dies down a little.” She just hadn’t known it would mean three month after the café opened.

“And only when Heimdall asks for your help on business related to the law,” Thor said over the phone, amused, when Sif informed him of her plans. “It’s always work for Sif Vanir.”

“You know, most of the time when lawyers offer free legal counsel, people go with a ‘thank you,’” she told him, dry.

“Well, we are certainly very grateful,” Thor said, managing to sound both sincere and flippant at the same time. “But you work so much sometimes we wonder if you’re dead or gone missing. And that, my friend, is the truth.”

Sif stacked the Cormack files on top of the rest of her literature review for upcoming case and bit back her instinctive reply—something about needing to start over at a new firm in her early thirties, and needing to work twice as hard as those other fresh-faced Harvard or Yale graduates just to gain the senior associates’ acknowledgement.

It had not been three years ago since Odin, under the advice of Thor’s brother, had fired her under some trumped-up charges related to their handling of the Aether Global Inc. case. Thor had then been overseas, tied up in a trail of corporate complaints that would eventually lead to the whole debacle around his bastardized sister’s hostile takeover of the family company, and had not been aware of the charges until Sif had already took her personal belongings in a little brown box out of the fifteenth floor office of Asgard International. The humiliation of it was still deeply etched in her mind, but it would be unfair to remind him of the days where the both of them had been left so helpless in the face of others’ manipulation—and not to mention now, of all times, when he was heading to Norway to finalize his father’s funeral arrangements.

“I underestimated the workload of a firm of Velez & Chambers’ caliber. But it’s under control now,” she said. “You should worry more about what to say to that sister of yours when you see her in Oslo.”

Thor chuckled. “That I will do.”

That Sunday afternoon, Sif pushed open the heavy glass doors of the Little Asgardian. Most of the patrons were, to her surprise, families, some with young children, though there were a fair number of teenagers as well. Each group chattered among each other atop wooden stools with glass top tables, or a smattering of cozy red sofas, to Fred Mercury’s soft crooning in the background. Two heavy fans spanned the entire ceiling, and the four walls were laden with portraits of rock musicians, faded photographs, and the occasional license plate or two. The whole thing was put together in the sort of controlled retro clusterfuck of colors and checkerboard-pattern floor tiles that Sif could never imagine Heimdall to have approved, except under extreme duress. The thought of the man sighing as he paged through conceptual drafts for the café’s décor, his head hung low, made her huff out a laugh. But the patrons here looked content, nestled comfortably among the tornado of sensory overload, and Sif supposed there was a reason Heimdall was ultimately won over.

But Heimdall was nowhere to be seen. So Sif stood in the short line with her phone out, hoping to double-check the numbers on some of the accounting work an audit firm had sent over that morning.

She had just moved onto the emails from her new client—he was having second thoughts for the third time about testifying at the Andersen case—when someone cleared her throat.

Sif looked up. The barista was leaning against the counter, her arms spread, fingers drumming against the edge. Her long black hair spilled across her shoulders, but as Sif watched she flipped them back across her right shoulder and raised a well-trimmed eyebrow. Her nametag read “Val.”

“Excuse me,” Sif said, tucking her phone back to her pocket smoothly. She forced herself to look up at the menu. “May I get a—”

She faltered. The menu, coated with heavy chalk, proclaimed items such as the BORN IN THE AMERICANO, the JOHNNIE BREWED GOODE, and the RISTRETTO STONES. She abruptly remembered that this was a café Thor— _Thor Odinson_ —partially owned.

“A—” She scanned the list again. “A recommendation?” she finally managed.

To her surprise, Val grinned. “It’s alright. I know what you need.”

Without another word, the barista moved toward the espresso machine, her pinky hooked around the handle of a blue mug. Sif followed her from across the counter. “I’m sorry, but—”

“You’re Sif Vanir, aren’t you?” Val asked. “The lawyer chick. You’re doing consultation work for our café.”

 “I—yes,” Sif said, her eyes tracing the lean muscles of the woman’s bare upper arms—then looked up quickly and tried for a smile. “Heimdall told you to expect me?” she asked.

Val’s grin deepened, as though Sif had said something greatly amusing. “You can say that.” She dipped a small hill of ground coffee into a portafilter. After tamping down the espresso, she fit the portafilter against the machine. “It’s on the house, the least we can do for our consultant.” She pulled a red lever, and all Sif could see was steam as coffee filled the mug. “I’ll bring over the papers to you in a bit. Why don’t you take a seat for now?”

Sif, perplexed, did. She settled into a high-rise chair near the windows, both to soak in the fragile November sunlight and to surreptitiously glance over to the counter every once in a while. She then pulled out her laptop to look busy. After Val finished she disappeared down the darkened hallway and returned with a thin plastic binder and a USB, both of which she handed to Sif when she headed over.

“And your order,” Val added, sliding a cappuccino across the table. Sif accepted it, feeling the warmth of the coffee seep into her fingers. Val had styled the foam to the liking of a lily in full bloom. Sif looked up and caught her gaze—that amused look in her eye again, between flirtation and not.

Val jutted a thumb behind her. “I’ll be behind the counter if you need anything, though Heimdall should be here any moment now.”

“Thank you,” Sif said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear—a nervous habit she thought she had shaken off, years ago. She cleared her throat. “What is it?”

Val shrugged. “It’s a Gukeng espresso blend—from Taiwan, a specialty blend. Or if you meant the coffee, that’s a double-shot cappuccino with whole milk. Hope you’re not lactose intolerant.”

“It’s beautiful,” Sif told her, seriously.

Val appeared caught off guard by this for a second. Then she grinned and said, “Taste it; it’ll be even better,” before wiping her hands on her apron and leaving.

Sif spent a moment admiring the pattern again, then held the cup to her lips. The crema of the cappuccino was rich and almost velvety in texture, while the coffee itself was smooth and cleanly sweet in undertone. She was, quite frankly, in love.

Heimdall did arrive half an hour later, greeting Sif with a hug. He had just returned from city hall, he told her, which explained the harried look in his eyes. Understanding the work authorization process for refugees and asylum seekers was a messy business—a business that Heimdall was hoping Sif would undertake.

“But you have everything already,” he observed, skimming over the mess of documents she had made over the narrow desk. He slid in the chair opposite her. “You’ve met our other owner, then?”

“Val?” Sif said, surprised. “But I thought you and Thor owned the Little Asgardian.”

“We do,” Heimdall said. “But there are—well, there are actually five owners in total. Val and I own a larger share of the business, but we also do most of the managing. Bruce Banner is another owner—I believe he and Thor worked together a few years ago. Then there is Loki.”

Sif strained to keep her face straight, but Heimdall must have noticed all the same, because he frowned.

“Thor didn’t tell you he’s here?” he asked.

Sif sighed. “He did mention that they made up earlier this year, but he also tends to skip over little details like that.” Sif’s arm came up to support her chin as she glanced over to the front counter. “But I think I know who Val is. Thor’s talked about her, though he didn’t mention her by name—she’s the bounty hunter who saved him in Vegas, right?”

“Yes,” Heimdall said. “I hadn’t met her before coming to the United States after Hela’s takeover of Asgard International, but since then I believe we have become good friends.”

Sif let her eyes dart over to Val again. Perhaps she lingered on her for a little too long, because when she looked at Heimdall again, he was smiling.

 

2.

 

Sif began visiting the Little Asgardian every other day. Even though the coffee house was over on the other side of the city, and the roads were inevitably congested with traffic and tourists whenever she left work, she told herself she needed to be at coffee shop in case there was something she needed to ask Heimdall—or Val, of course—right away.

She had the first volume of Title 10 of the state codes, rules, and regulations—subpart 14-1—propped open on the edge of her table one day when a plate of neatly sliced poundcakes was propped on her table.

Val stood in front of her, surveying the rest of the shop. She was wiping her hands on a dry cloth, which she tucked into the pocket of her jeans when she was done. When she noticed Sif looking, she grinned.

“Slow day today,” Val said as a way of greeting. “Mind trying some?” She nodded to the plate. “You look like you can use a break.”

“I can, actually,” Sif said, taking off her glasses and stretching. Val took a seat opposite her. “Did you make this?”

“No, I’m more of a—liquids, you know, kind of gal.” Her eyes were faraway, her smile almost rueful. But she snapped her attention back to Sif almost right away. “Korg made these.” She gestured toward the broad-shouldered teenager who was currently rearranging the pastries on the display shelf. “He loves baking, is great at it too. We’ve been pestering him to let us sell some of his pastries—let the kid earn a little more money on the side too—but he didn’t want to until he’s sure they’re good.”

Sif took a slice of the poundcake. It was light on the tongue and subtly sweet. Sif hummed in appreciation.

“Well he doesn’t need to worry,” she said. “These are amazing.”

“I know right? That’s what I told him,” Val said, popping a piece into her mouth. She _tsk_ ed. “The kid’s way too harsh on himself, I swear. But he’s had a rough life.” At Sif’s inquisitive look, she explained, “His family moved to America when he was eight, but his father left before he finished middle school. He was quite an asshole, from what I could tell, but after his mom fell sick they kind of needed that missing income.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah. Korg dropped out of school to work fulltime. Things have been turning around a bit since his mom met a nice guy who works at the docks. He seems happy enough here at the café, but Heimdall and I have been trying to convince him to get his GED so he can go to culinary school or something.” Her eyes turned to Sif. “You?”

“Me?” Sif asked, a little startled.

“What’s your story?” she asked.

“I—it’s nothing much,” Sif said. “I grew up outside of London, then went to school. Worked for Thor’s father, then I switched jobs. Now I’m here.”

“Which school?” Val asked, curious.

Embarrassed, though she had no real reason to be, Sif said, “Cambridge.”

Val responded with a low whistle.

“Thor and I met at uni,” Sif felt obligated to add.

“He’s—different,” Val said, dismissively. “As for you—I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though. Velez & Chambers is a pretty big firm, from what I read.”

“What you read?”

“On the internet,” Val said, brazen, as though trying to slide past the fact that she had almost definitely Googled Sif’s name before meeting her. But her ears were burning red. “So were you the type of kid who just studied all the time, Cambridge?”

“I’ve been accused of that,” Sif said, thinking back to Thor’s words, which were echoes of the same things he had often said while they were in university together. “But I did do some rowing in college,” Sif admitted. Never well enough to make the captaincy, but the team had won some championships. “I haven’t touched an oar in a couple of years, but I still sail here and there.” She lifted an eyebrow. “And what about you?”

“Me?” Val smiled. “What about me?”

“Anything. I see you around a lot, but I don’t think I know you at all,” Sif said. “ ‘Val.’ Does that stand for something? Valentine?”

“It’s a family name,” she said.

Then, without blinking an eye, she moved onto a story of a bowling night all of the owners of the Little Asgardian had attended, and how Loki—who had complained the entire time—stubbed his toe on more than one occasion and lost terribly against Val. Sif was much entertained, even if Val had not answered her original question at all.

 

3.

 

Immigration law not being her field of study, it took Sif a while more to finish Heimdall’s task. The papers for the Little Asgardian’s new hire, Miek, finally went through after fixing a minor labeling error that the USCIS could have overlooked, but didn’t—but that was the nature of things. When she finished explaining to Heimdall the procedures for future refugee hires, she had no real reason to return to the Little Asgardian anymore, even to visit Heimdall. She thought that friends, even those who loved each other dearly, grew tired of each other if they see each other too frequently. But she did continue to go to the café, and she couldn’t exactly lie to herself as to why this is—not when Heimdall, too, would turn his all-knowing eyes to her with an almost imperceptible smirk.

It was ironic also that soon after she finished her legal consultations for the Little Asgardian, Val appeared to vanish without a trace. By the third time Sif visited the café after she had no reason to do so, she finally let go of her pride and mentioned Val’s absence to Heimdall. The man merely looked to the window outside, where the skies were storming, exacerbated by the warming seas nearby.

“Ah,” he said. “She is likely covering the field with tarps now. They prevents weeds from growing, you understand.”

At her befuddlement, he smiled. “Don’t worry too much about her. She takes a few days off every month to drive back home to visit her family, among other things.”

Val did return, as Heimdall predicted, a few days later, and emerged from the backroom to greet her with a cheerful “Cambridge.” If she noticed any oddity to Sif still being present, she did not mention it.

 

4.

 

By the next month the senior associates at Velez & Chambers finally deigned to give Sif a serious assignment in the form of her own court case, with a few 2Ls at her disposal. It meant more interesting work, but also more unpaid hours, and she found herself genuinely needing the caffeine provided by the Little Asgardian. At some point she had moved from the street-facing window seat to a more comfortable sofa seat. The change hadn’t gone unnoticed by Val, who had come over with a slice of Korg’s chocolate cake and lamented the loss of a quarter of the café’s future revenue. Sif had laughed and told her the loss in revenue would be more than recuperated if Val were the one sitting by that seat, and Val had grinned and said, “Nah. That can’t handle me. They’d be scared shitless first.” But Sif silently disagreed.

It had not been soon after she had won the case—easily—that a man had entered the coffee shop while Korg was manning the front with another barista during rush hour. Korg looked so uncomfortable when the man began speaking to him that Sif went to the counter. When he saw her approaching, Korg instantly lit up.

“This gentleman right here is asking for one of the shop owners, but Heimdall is out,” Korg explained. Sif wondered, again, at how a giant human being can produce such a soft voice. “Would it be alright if you call Val down from upstairs? She’s not very responsive to texts and I don’t want to leave Miek to the afternoon swarm.”

“Of course,” she told him, smiling. “Upstairs, you said?”

“Yep,” he said. “That’s where she lives.” And before Sif could ask for another explanation, his attention was overtaken by a fuming suburban mother type. The man Korg had spoken to looked at Sif expectantly.

Having entered the back of the shop to retrieve financial statements and other papers before, Sif knew that there was a narrow staircase situated to the left of the backroom entrance leading to lands unknown. She now took those stairs, entering a hallway lit by the sliver of light from the propped open door marked for emergency exits.

The only other door in the hall was locked, and Sif knocked on it. There was no answer. When she repeated this experiment with varying knocking strength, with no one coming to answer, she walked through the door at the end of the hall into open air.

She had stayed indoors for enough time that the sun was brighter than she expected, and her eyes needed a few seconds to adjust. When they did, she found herself standing on a balcony. There was the shape of a ladder against the wall. Biting her lip, she removed her high heels and climbed up.

The first thing she noticed once she reached the top was the small garden in one corner, covering a quarter of the roof. Fertilizer, shovels, and watering cans were arranged neatly by its side. Directly opposite the garden and the gardening tools was a sad, rain-worn and sun-bleached parasol; two matching lawn chairs in similar states of disuse; and a small fort of beer cans and Jack Daniels bottles. Beyond them, Val was stretched along the edge of the roof, one leg swinging off the building.

Val’s eyes blinked open. She looked at Sif up and down.

“You’re barefoot,” she told Sif.

“My rock climbing instructor hasn’t taught us how to climb in stilettos,” Sif said, then explained, “There’s someone at the shop who needs to meet one of the proprietors. Korg sent me to get you, but no one was answering the door.”

Sif was, for her part, embarrassed. If she had realized how private this place was, she would not have entered.

As though reading her thoughts, Val moved to stand. “It’s fine, Cambridge,” she said. “What do you think of my roses?”

“Roses?”

“Yeah.” Val went over to the garden and caught one of the plants between her fingers. A bud, Sif realized when she moved to get a closer look. “They’re five months old. I planted them as soon as I moved here.”

“They’ll be blooming soon?”

She sighed. “Maybe.” She began examining the undersides of the leaves, the thorns. “I haven’t really gardened before, though, besides—weeding.” She let go of the rose plant. “I’m not sure how this will turn out.”

Sif had no real gardening experience at all besides the tomato plant her third grade class took turns to water until it died an untimely death by a pet rabbit a classmate brought to show-and-tell. Still the stalk looked green and supple, and the buds heavy and plentiful. So she said, “It’ll be beautiful, I’m sure.”

Val smiled. “I hope so.”

Sif noticed, not for the first time, that brightness in Val’s eyes, full of both mirth and challenge, and the way her hair cascaded past her shoulders and ruffled with the breeze. Val walked with an easy tilt of her hips and often lifted her head up proudly when she spoke, confident that she was in full command of the room—and at times, it seemed, fearful that she was not. That Val was gorgeous Sif had known from the first time she saw her. That Val was beautiful in this heartbreaking way Sif thought she was just starting to understand.

“Come on,” Sif said. “We better be down before the man harasses poor Korg again.”

 

5.

 

Thor returned to the city at the end of winter with his brother in tow. The day after, he took Sif, as well as Volstagg and the rest, out to drinks with the rest of the owners of the Little Asgardian. Sif would be seeing Val outside the café for the first time, and she was unsure if she had adequately prepared herself for that. But it also meant she would be spending anything from three hours to the entire night with Loki in confined space.

As two of the oldest members of the group, Heimdall and the man who had introduced himself as Bruce Banner secluded themselves in a corner of the bar an hour in. Val was currently swaying with Hogun in one arm and Frandal in the other, singing some Norwegian drinking song. Sif alternated between sneaking glances at them from above the lip of her wineglass and glaring at Loki, who was sitting across from her in the booth, shrunk around his glass of whiskey. Thor sat next to him, effectively blocking his exit.

For some time now Thor had been attempting to force small talk between Sif and his brother, to little avail. After Thor mentioned one more time the beautiful weather—there was a hailstorm outside—Loki finally snapped, “Oh Thor, you can stop it now. Our lady here is clearly less interested in talking to me than she is ogling _her._ ” He nodded at Val, who had left the sobbing Hogun, Frandal, and Volstagg to talk to Bruce Banner and Heimdall, still looking as clear-eyed as ever.

Thor snapped to Sif. “Valk—Val?” he asked. “You’re interested in her?”

Sif raised an eyebrow at him and placed her glass delicately by her side. She cleared her throat. “Is there a problem?” she asked, as neutrally as she could, though she threw in an extra glare there for Loki’s sake.

“Oh no no. I don’t think I can ever have a problem with whether or not someone is a suitor of our Val. Not,” Thor added hurriedly, “that she is _our_ Val or anything like that. Val doesn’t belong to any one person or thing, and we are not her parents. It is, as they say, a figure of speech.” He glanced at Loki. “Was that fine?”

“Perfectly,” Loki said, though he had been grinning since Sif asked her question and did not seem to have heard Thor’s question at all. “Oh she’s a feisty one. You can try to approach her if you’d like. See what happens to you then.”

“She had beaten Loki badly in a game of cards during the Las Vegas incident,” Thor confided.

“She cheated!” Loki said.

“So did you. But she still won.”

Loki colored. Sif sipped her wine to hide her smile.

At some point, however, she did leave Thor and Loki when Thor began looking shifty-eyed—an expression on him that resembled that of a child trying not to reveal he stole the last cookie—coughing and muttering about “Thanos.” Sif knew, from casual conversation with Heimdall, that Thanos was a corporation seeking to buy out the Little Asgardian among the other businesses on the block for a condominium project. There were currently talks with the other store owners about plans to retaliate. Not being an official employee, Sif took the moment to excuse herself, to Thor’s relief and Loki’s roll of the eyes.

Val was now sitting at the bar. When Sif joined her, Val said, without looking back, “It’s my second drink tonight, Odinson.”

“A respectable benchmark,” Sif agreed, gesturing for the bartender to refill her glass.

Val glanced at her, then at the bottle the bartender lifted to the lip of the glass. “Barolo? Not one for cocktails, then.”

Sif smiled. “It’s very ‘Cambridge’ of me, isn’t it?”

“Stole the words right out of my mouth, my lady,” Val grinned back.

“And you?” Sif asked, nodding at the bottle Val was holding.

Val held the bottle to her face and rolled the neck of it between her fingers as she read the label.

“Microbrewed sewer swill trying to pass for IPA,” Val decided. “Oh look—it won an award. That explains it.”

Sif laughed, and it earned her another small smile from Val. The bartender from earlier shot Val a dirty look.

They talked about the shop, then about the going-on’s at Sif’s workplace. At some point the conversation trailed off to current events, to wine-making, to the latest sci-fi movie, to life philosophies. Sif hadn’t laughed as much as she did in a while, and even Val occasionally joined in.

Heimdall and Banner soon took their leave, citing old age, to Thor’s semi-drunken boos. Volstagg, Hogun, and Frandal, however, followed to announce their departure—it seemed that it was either that or the barkeep would drag them out himself. So they dispersed to groups, packing off into their own cars. Val hadn’t brought a car of her own, and Sif offered her a ride back. Val accepted after a brief moment of hesitation.

The drive was brief and quiet. The exterior of the café, when Sif pulled by its front entrance, was soaked in moonlight, the plaque that read the Little Asgardian gleaming white. When Sif turned to give her goodnights, Val was already staring at her, though she whipped her head away just as fast.

“Thanks for the ride,” Val said.

“You’re welcome,” Sif said, who was looking straight ahead. “I’ll see you then?”

“Yeah.” Then the passenger seat door opened and closed, and Sif let out a long sigh, her head coming the rest on the top of the steering wheel.

A tap by her ear startled her. It was Val. Sif rolled her window down.

“You said you rock climbed?” Val asked.

“Yes, I—Yes,” Sif said. “I do. Rock climb—bouldering, mostly.”

“Great,” Val said. “I know a place near midtown, if you’re interested. I mean, I know the manager there. But the place is great too. I can get you a discount if you want to come with.”

“I—that’s great,” Sif said. “I’m definitely interested.”

“Alright,” Val said. “You have my number, right?”

“Actually, I don’t,” Sif confessed.

One of Val’s eyebrows popped up. “Oh. Oh, okay. Well, let me see your phone real quick.”

Sif handed it over, and Val tapped a few buttons before handing it back. The contact information read VAL (THE MOST AMAZING BARISTA).

“Just let me know when you’re free,” Val said, running her fingers through her hair. “We can match up our schedules and, like, go together or something.”

“I’ll do that,” Sif said, her heart flooded with warmth. “But—do you also need my number?”

“I—no,” Val said. “I’ve actually saved it when Heimdall passed me your information. During, you know, your legal consultations for the store.”

“Yes, of course,” Sif said.

“So I’ll see you?” Val asked.

“I’ll see you.”

“Good. Night, Cambridge.”

“Goodnight to you too.”

And with that Val tapped the hood twice and walked into the shop. When she entered, the storefront was temporarily flooded with yellow light, before it was extinguished soon after.

 

6.

 

Given that Sif had just started on the sport, it was no surprise that Val proved the better of the two in rock climbing. Their date the week after—their purely platonic date, Sif liked to remind herself—had left Sif boneless and panting in the middle of the climbing mats, her shirt soaked through with sweat. Val stood over her, her arms crossed, but—Sif was pleased to note—clearly out of breath as well.

“Remind me to take you rowing sometimes,” Sif told her between breaths. “Or sailing.”

Val grinned. “I look forward to that.”

They continued rock climbing together, occasionally sharing a meal afterwards, and at one point watching a movie together on a Friday where Sif had left work early. Sif still regularly visited the coffee house. Due to the nature of her work, more often than not Sif would arrive at the Little Asgardian in the latest part of the day and remain one of the few patrons hitting closing hours. It was not rare for her to help Val or Heimdall tidy up the store—Val still refused to let her pay for coffee. “I know firms your size charge by the _minute_ ,” she said. “If we don’t give you free coffee, our best in-house lawyer’s going to get poached by some other charming independent café, and we can’t risk that.”

Sometimes Val would crack open a bottle of whiskey or vodka and offer it to Sif and Heimdall. Heimdall always refused. Sif would join in, and the two of them would drink by the tall tables or on the roof, next to the roses that had yet to bloom.

The first time this happened Thor and Bruce Banner were present. They had been hoping to discuss the war with Thanos that was brewing, if Thor was to be believed, just outside the Little Asgardian’s windows. But then they saw the bottle. The conversation tapered off abruptly.

Then Val had begun with “I told you I wasn’t going to stop drinking,” to which Banner replied, “I know.” Then Thor had said, “But I thought—” and Val cut in, as sharp as shattering glass, “This isn’t your problem.” And she lifted herself off the café counter and entered the back. When silence followed, Sif swung the last pair of chairs over on the table, shared a nod with Heimdall, and headed for the second floor.

Val sat at the end of the hall, the door to the roof propped open with a brick. When she looked at Sif the moon reflected in her eyes.

“Cambridge.”

“Mind if I join you?”

Val waved a hand, and Sif sat across from her in the narrow hall, stretching her leg as far as the opposite wall allowed her.

“It’s commonly thought of,” Val said after a while, “that I have a problem with alcohol.”

Sif waited, but Val did not elaborate. Instead, Val turned to her and said, “If this is some plan to keep me talking so I drink less, I’ll let you know that I’m pretty great at multitasking.”

“Of course not,” Sif said, taking the bottle from her and taking a swig. The whiskey scorched a long thin trail all the way down her throat. She wiped off the corner of her lips with the back of her hand, not breaking eye contact. “I’m here to drink with you.”

When Val took back the bottle to take a matching gulp, as though daring her to say anything about it. Sif just smiled and faced the doorway. “What were you saying earlier? About adding a lunch menu?”

She could tell, from the corner of her field of vision, that Val was still eyeing her suspiciously when she set down the bottle. But Val began, “So Banner and I visited this bistro the other day, right? And we thought, if _they_ can call that pile of sludge a quiche and sell it for fifteen bucks, what’s stopping us from making a half-decent one for a third of the price? And we got around to asking Korg...”

Perhaps out of concern for Sif’s comparative lack of alcohol tolerance, the bottle was still half-full by the time Sif left for the night.

 

7.

 

“Have you ever?” Val asked once. Sif didn’t understand what she was talking about until she nodded at Thor, who was taking over Val’s shift—and her apron—at the counter. A customers were looking at him with dreamy expressions on their faces.

“Yes,” Sif said, laughing. It had been ages ago, she thought. But it was hard not to. Thor Odinson was for the most part an honorable man, and Sif was attracted to the honorable type. “I was a fresher at uni, I think. It was after I scored higher than him in our antitrust final. But he was quite serious about Jane Foster then, and I gave up.” She tilted her head toward Val curiously. “You? I think he had broken up with Jane by the time you met, hadn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Val said. She hummed thoughtfully. “Well, at first I thought, maybe—but then I thought, why go and ruin a good friendship?”

Sif said carefully, “Is that what you fear? Ruining a friendship?”

Val picked up a piece of chocolate chip cookie. Korg was having a crisis of confidence after they displayed his first works, despite the customers’ raving reviews. He was returning to the basics to make sure he had them hammered down correctly.

“No,” Val said. “Not anymore.”

 

8.

 

Sif had mostly lost count of the number of casual relationships she had had over the years, not because they were too numerous to count, but because she tended to remember things that were relevant to her life, and counting the notches on bedposts was not one of them. But of her serious relationships there were three.

There was the girl she had dated when she was a third-year, a relationship that had, mutually, been less about love than about self-fulfillment in the absence of men. It wasn’t a relationship built to last, and they had their fun before parting ways after four months.

After she graduated uni, there was a woman ten years her senior—a watercolor artist who lived by the Thames. Everything about that woman had been enveloped in an air of mystery, and Sif had felt her own youth for the first time in her life. As their relationship went on, however, Sif came to understand that the air of mystery was a veneer for her partner’s insecurities and crises of confidence, and she came horrifically close to pitying her rather than loving her. But love her she did, and eventually—after several wall-quaking fights—they called it quits.

A few years afterwards, there was a sweet-natured man two years her junior she had met through a blind date. They had good fun together, but the relationship never progressed to anything that resembled marriage, and she got along horribly with his family the one time they met. When his company moved to Paris, they parted ways easily, though they still occasionally exchanged communication.

Soon after, she had been ousted from Asgard, and between studying for the state bar and hunting for jobs, apartments, and gyms, as well as trying to forgive Thor, she had had no time for relationships.

All this she told Val in her apartment, after one of their sessions at the gym.

“And you?” Sif now asked.

Val smiled. “The one serious relationship I was in ended five years ago,” she said.

She did not elaborate more. Sif, as usual, did not ask.

 

9.

 

One day after closing, when the shop was cleared of everyone but Sif and Val, Val popped open a bottle and swirled it the brown liquor round and round. But she did not drink.

Then she said, Her name was Freya.

They had lived three blocks away from each other their entire life, though Val had not become aware of her existence until first grade, recess, when Dennis Griffin from the class over began bullying that blonde girl with pretty braids down her hair. Val had gotten detention that day for kicking Griffin’s butt and making him cry—horrifying her mother, who had grounded her for an entire week. During recess the next morning, the girl came to sit next to her on the swings, a ring of flowers clutched between her grubby hands.

They had been best friends up until seventh grade, when Freya began drawing away and broke Val’s heart. Then Freya kissed her one day and Val did too, a month later. They were high school sweethearts, going steady even after Val headed to UPenn and Freya stayed behind at a local public university. When they both finished earning their bachelor’s and were unimpressed by the opportunities higher education provided, they moved back to their hometown, enrolled in fire school, and were hired by the town fire department within the month. In three years they were married, with a mortgage placed a small one-story American Colonial within driving distance from their parents, a plan to save up enough to start a florist shop, and a wedding by a lake.

And then—and here was where Val’s hand began to shake, and she placed the glass on the floor to hide it—and then there was a fire in an apartment on Ellis Avenue, a few blocks away from their old high school. Later Val would learn that the cause was an unsupervised stove, that the building had collapsed after their captain sawed into the apartment under the mistaken assumption the walls would hold, that the structural integrity of the apartment—Type IV, modified heavy timber construction, built in the late 1970s—had been weakened by termites that had long run unfettered among the columns.

But that was later. At the time, while their team was deep within the apartment complex’s smoky halls, all she knew was that Freya had shoved her out of the way when the roof split open and the sky rained fire. Five people had died that day; her wife was one.

She moved out of town after the funeral, all the way to the other end of the United States. She introduced herself as Val—for Valkyrie, the last name she shared with Freya—instead of Brunnhilde, the name she had gone with for thirty years of her life. For a while she stayed at Los Angeles, doing bartending work surrounded by attractive strangers. When she had her first one-night-stand a year in she stumbled out of the high rise and threw up on the sidewalk. Then she had gone on and done the same the week after, and it was easier, and even more so the week after that, and the week after that one, and so on. Within a year she moved, and moved again the following year, over and over—to San Francisco, to Seattle, to Phoenix.

At Las Vegas she worked as an unlicensed bounty hunter and befriended Banner, captured then rescued Thor, and beat Loki in a poker game.  Having thus hitched onto the Odinsons’ brand of crazy, she found her way all the way back to the Eastern Seaboard to start a coffee shop, of all things.

 

10.

 

“Hey,” Val asked, the Friday after. “So—you, uh, up for getting your hands a little dirty?”

Which was how Sif found herself on Val’s 2002 Toyota Camry at six in the morning, gripping the overhead handle as Val made war with Interstate 76 in the three-hour car ride. When they finally pulled into the town of Folksfield, Pennsylvania, Sif stumbled out the car and steadied herself by a red pullup. Once Sif was convinced that she was alive, she noticed Val smiling at her.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Val said, though her smile remained. “Nothing, just—No, it’s like I thought. You really are different from her.”

Then she turned and headed up the driveway. Sif followed.

The late Freya Valkyrie’s parents were a couple in their sixties, with identical laughter lines by their eyes and their blond hair bleaching into gray. When they answered Val’s knock they towered over Sif and Val both, but they quickly welcomed them in with offers of coffee, cookies, and cakes. Val took some while Sif answered their questions about her background and their drive here. If the old couple was wary of the new woman their late daughter’s wife had brought to their household, they did not show it.

“Where would we be working?” Sif asked after a while. “Is it far from here? I’m afraid I’m not too familiar with the area.”

“Not far,” Val said, standing before either of Freya’s parents could. “We can head over now if you’re ready.”

Sif acquiesced, and she and Val bid them a quick farewell, promising to return for lunch.

Sif followed Val out the house from the backdoor, to a stretch of farmland sectioned off by a loose ring of trees. Val navigated the field with grace that came from familiarity, hopping over the tilled fields sprouted with green and tiptoeing across the canals. She was wearing a red plaid shirt stitched through with yellow stripes, her hair tied back in a loose ponytail, and Sif thought she could see the small-town girl who had lived among these fields her entire life, hand-in-hand with the love of her life.

“You able to keep up, Cambridge?” Val turned to shout.

“Yeah,” Sif shouted back. “I see you.”

She spared a regretful look at her jeans—her only pair—which were already speckled with mud from her own less than graceful journey through the land, and she hoped it wasn’t an omen for how the weekend was going to proceed.

The patch of land they would be clearing lay behind a small apple orchard on the west side of the property. Wildflowers had once carpeted the ground here, under an old ash tree. But after the ash tree had grown diseased the year before, it had been cut down, and the surrounding flowers had followed it to wither.

Freya’s parents wished to cultivate the land here, but in their advanced age, and with their eldest son living out in California, they hadn’t the chance to. So Val had been tending to this land for them since she returned to the east coast for the Little Asgardian, clearing this field of timber and pebbles every weekend she had the time. Just last month, however, she had uncovered a couple of boulders buried shallowly near the apple trees—perhaps a border marker left behind by the last owner. Pulling out that, plus the ash tree’s stump, from the land had quickly been determined a two-man job.

“A two-woman job,” Val corrected now. She looked up from her wide-brimmed hat. “You can still back out if you don’t want to break your pretty nails, Cambridge.”

“As your rock climbing partner—who _just_ managed to overtake you in our last session—I would like to object to the implications of that statement,” Sif said, tugging on her work gloves.

After retrieving their tools from a nearby shed, they first dealt with the boulders, three in total. Val had dug a nice perimeter around each rock the month before. The tractor the old couple owned lacked a backhoe, so now they tied chains around each boulder to the tractor in order to drag each boulder out the dirt. The chains slipped out more than a few times. In the end Sif stepped on the chains as Val hit the gas pedal, and each stone was plucked out like a tooth.

Freya’s mother brought them hot tea at midday and finally convinced them to return to the house by early afternoon for lunch. After they finished the meal, Val brought out two pairs of garden shears and a pair of shovels. Then they gathered on opposite ends of the stump and began to dig at the surrounding earth.

Despite Val’s assurance that the tree had been sickly for a long while before it was cut down, the roots were stubborn. After the top layer of dirt was cleared away, Sif could tell that many of the roots had been eaten away by worms and rot. Even after they sheared away much of the auxiliary roots, however, three main roots remained, each as thick as a tire. It was then Val brought out the chainsaw—a small one, the blades as long as the length of her hand. Against the shower of sawdust, she cut away large sections of each root. The base of the trunk was thus loosened from the hold of the ground, and Sif rolled it to a far side of the field.

The rest of the day was spent digging out as many of the severed roots as they could, then back filling the cavities of the land with dirt. When the sun dipped precariously close to the horizon, the two of them made their way back to the house with dopey grins on their faces, repeating various highlights of their yardwork like they had just been to a football game.

After dinner, while his wife fussed over Val with food, Freya’s father walked over with his cane to speak to Sif about the state of the land, and if her experience farming for the first time might induce her to quit that bigshot law firm. Sif laughed and said she would consider. Val completed then her timely escape from the clutches of Freya’s mother and inquired over their heads if Sif was ready to leave. Sif was. After bidding their see-you-tomorrow’s, the two of them ducked into Val’s car and drove for Val’s childhood home.

The ride was short but lengthened by the heavy darkness outside the window. When they arrived, Val’s mother came to the door. Like Val, she was a shorter woman and quieter than Freya’s parents, but she hugged Val with no less ferocity than fitting for a mother welcoming her baby girl back home. With Sif, she held both of her hands and greeted her warmly.

“And my god, do you cut quite the figure in person. I can see what she was talking about now,” she told Sif, while Val whispered a strangled “Mom!” behind her.

With her voice lowered, Val’s mother added that her husband was on a fishing trip with a friend, but that the neighbor’s toddler she was babysitting was asleep upstairs. She asked them if they were hungry, then answered her own question—“I’m guessing Nerthus has already shoved more food to you than you can handle”—and asked them if they needed anything. Val gave a noncommittal grunt, so Sif thanked her and said there was nothing else. Val’s mother had a long look at her daughter, then pointed to where the shower and kitchen were for Sif’s benefit, before bidding them goodnight. Val led Sif to the guest room, which was opposite her room.

“Better sleep early then,” Val said, in the quiet that followed.

“Yes,” said Sif. “We have a full day tomorrow too.”

“Thank you for coming with me this weekend,” Val said, all but blurting out the words. “It’s been a huge help. Really. The old folks”—that was how she referred to Freya’s parents—“they loved you. I can tell.”

_You too_ , was what Sif was going to say, but Val ducked forward and kissed her before she could.

It was over in a second. When Val leaned back, she swallowed heavily. But her eyes were steely with determination.

“Good night,” she said, and in the next moment she had disappeared behind the doorway.

Sif did not sleep well that night, and when she blinked her eyes open the next morning it was eight o’clock, later than she had woken up in quite a while. She tiptoed down the hall, feeling a little lightheaded from fatigue, her mind more of a whirl of emotions than anything. When she entered the kitchen, however, only Val’s mother was present.

“I made some eggs and sausage in the pan; she made some coffee before she left,” Val’s mother said. “Why don’t you serve yourself and come sit here?”

Sif thanked her and did as was suggested. Afterwards, she began, “Do you know where Val is, Ms.—”

“Erda,” Val’s mother said. “I didn’t take on my husband’s name when we married.”

“Ms. Erda,” Sif finished.

“For your question: she’s likely visiting Freya’s grave right now,” Ms. Erda. “She was buried at her father’s church.”

“I see.”

“She doesn’t usually spend long there—not anymore. But she won’t be back for a bit, for various reasons. One of which is avoiding her mother, probably.”

This last part was said matter-of-factly. Seeing Sif’s expression, Ms. Erda said, “My daughter feels guilty for leaving my husband and me after Freya’s death. We’re her birth parents, and we haven’t a field for her to clear. She doesn’t know what to do with us. We’ve told her we forgive her, but you know her: she has too much honor in her.”

“Despite what she claims sometimes,” Sif agreed.

Ms. Erda smiled. She and Val shared the same smile, Sif thought.

“Nerthus gave me many positive updates of your character yesterday,” Ms. Erda said.

Sif abruptly imagined Freya’s mother watching her work with Val from across the field with binoculars, jotting down notes every couple of minutes.

“I won’t thank you for taking care of my daughter, because I know most of her change over the past year wasn’t your doing,” Ms. Erda said, blunt; then she softened and said, “but also I don’t think she would appreciate that. However, I _am_ thanking you for taking care of my daughter, if that makes sense.”

Sif laughed, but she felt the obligation to add, “Thank you, but Val and I aren’t—”

“No, I know. She needed time. After all, they had known each other their entire lives.” Ms. Erda took a sip of coffee. “I don’t think most people can fully comprehend that kind of loss. But that’s not what it means to be someone’s loved one. My husband and I have come to learn that over the years. I think my daughter understands that too.”

Val returned to the house soon, toting a milk carton in one hand and a bag of what appeared to be leeks in the other. Ms. Erda and Sif laughed at once, leaving Val looking mystified.

Sif and Val walked toward Freya’s parents’ house. Sif knew _Val_ knew that keeping mum on the kiss wasn’t the best way to go about things, but Val looked almost terrified that Sif would mention it—her brows pinched together, her smile just a little too tight—so Sif did not. Instead Sif filled the air between them with chatter about their work up ahead, the movie they had watched together last, the arrogant new Velez  & Chambers Harvard hire, and the new climbing wall that would be up at their gym that summer. Val slowly relaxed enough to slide in occasional jibes and sarcastic remarks.

They patched up a bit more of the land from what they had missed yesterday, threw the stones and stump to a sled tied around the back of the tractor and drove them away. Then they tugged out the sparse weed that had cropped up since Val’s last visit. Sif took her turn at the tractor, plowing through the soil over which Val had spread a fresh layer of mulch, before both of them returned to their shovels, digging up canals around the land.

They made their way back to Freya’s parents’ house again at a few hours after noon. When they crossed the farmland, Sif’s foot was caught in a mud pit. Val, laughing, reached out to help her out the ditch. When Sif steadied again on solid ground, they found themselves staring at each other. Val did not let go. So Sif shifted their grip to link together their fingers, and they strode back to the house this way, shoulders pressed against each other’s.

To their surprise, Ms. Erda was sitting by the back porch when they returned, chatting amicably with Freya’s mother. Instantly Sif and Val untangled their fingers from each other, but Sif couldn’t help but notice Ms. Erda giving her a knowing look. Lunch again was filled with enthusiastic inquiries from Freya’s parents, this time with some tempering from Ms. Erda, who would also occasionally fan the fire by asking sly questions Sif was not sure she caught the meaning of, but which made Val flush. When they were finished, Freya’s mother asked after the progress of the land.

“It’s almost done,” Sif said. “We only have to sow the sunflower seeds in the afternoon and water the soil.”

“Sunflower seeds, huh?” Ms. Erda said. “It’s a good choice for the store, Nerthus.”

“It was your daughter’s idea,” Freya’s mother said happily. Ms. Erda shot a look at Val. Val took a forkful of the cut pear and resolutely refused to meet her mother’s eyes.

Ms. Erda and Freya’s mother asked to take a look at the field, and so Val—with apparent reluctance—led the way back. After they passed the apple orchard, Freya’s mother grew silent. Ms. Erda took her by the arm.

“It really is all gone,” Freya’s mother said. Then she seemed to come to her senses, and she said, to Val, “You’ve done tremendous work. I can’t thank you enough. And you too, Sif my dear.”

Sif accepted the thanks, while Val smiled and ducked her head.

Ms. Erda stayed for about fifteen minutes more before taking her leave. Freya’s mother stayed for a while longer, before she left to “leave you girls to it.” Sif and Val made quick work of the seeds and were finished at four in the afternoon.

“It’s done,” Val said, watching the sunlight pour between the trees to the bare soil. They were sitting beneath one of the apple trees, side by side.

“It is,” Sif said. Val leaned her head against her shoulder.

They bid their farewell to Freya’s parents, then to Val’s mother, nimbly dodging both of their invitations for dinner. With Ms. Erda, Val was given another tight embrace.

“You’ll still find reasons to come back to visit your old parents, won’t you?” Ms. Erda asked. “Your father misses you too. He was so sad to not have been here when I talked to him over the phone earlier.”

“Tell him not to worry,” Val said. “I still need to teach him how to make coffee that’s drinkable.”

Sif drove this time, saying she would not get on the highway otherwise. But she knew too that, as much Val had put her through physically that weekend, Val had been put through the wringer and back emotionally. Sure enough, Val dozed off within fifteen minutes on the car, then startled awake ten minutes later, eyes wide, only to doze off again in the same amount of time. The second time this happened, Sif laughed.

“Go to sleep,” she said. “I’ll wake you up if I need anything.”

“I’m awake,” Val said, slurring slightly. Then she knocked out for good in two minutes.

Just before leaving Pennsylvania, Sif left the highway to fill up the gas tank. When she returned to the driver’s seat, Val was awake and watching the cars on the highway speed past.

“You’re awake?” Sif teased.

Val, evidently remembering her last words, flushed to her ears. “Shut up,” she grumbled.

“I’ve been thinking,” Sif said, placing her hands on the wheel but not putting the keys into ignition. “You kissed me yesterday.”

“I did.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No.” A beat later, Val asked, “Did you?”

“No. It was the farthest thing from regret, I think.”

“I’m not a case you have to fix up,” Val said suddenly, turning to her with those bright, challenging eyes. “That’s not how this is going to work.”

“I don’t think you’re broken,” Sif said, honestly.

And suddenly there were tears in those eyes. Val rubbed at them and started laughing—a harsh sound at first, then not at all so. She blinked up at Sif again.

“I think I did this all wrong,” Val said. “I don’t think inviting you to meet my mother and my dead wife’s family is your step one.”

“I think we’ve already done our step one,” Sif said. “Now we just need to move onto step two.”

Then she leaned over to kiss Val. Val reciprocated with great enthusiasm. After a good couple of minutes, there was a honking noise from behind them, and they separated and laughed. Then Sif drove them to a nearby parking spot so they could continue what they had been doing.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope y'all enjoyed. I had to rush the fic in the end so I'm sure there are a bajillion errors I missed. Feel free to point them out in the comments or through private messaging and I'll try to address them when I have time.
> 
> As always, feel free to prompt me on Tumblr (...if you don't mind waiting a while for the fic). You can do so on my writing/fanfic blog at [lyrithim](https://lyrithim.tumblr.com/) or through my fandom blog at [meg-a-million-whats](https://http://meg-a-million-whats.tumblr.com/).


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